Talk:Microsoft

Based on comments on other pages, I omitted linking to things like Mosaic, but I missed disinformation. Most links were left out on the theory that not much could be said about disinformation and propaganda surrounding such relatively fringe subjects as Spyglass. Thanks for the cleanup -- BillGarrett

The following was objected to by an anonymous editor on 12 April 2004, as being "Over the top. Suggesting this was done purely to crush netscape is idle conjecture and unsubstantiated, weaking the rest of the argument."
 * Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows 95 for free in order to destroy its competitor Netscape. When questioned about this practice, Microsoft hacked Internet Explorer to be the file manager for Windows 98, and then claimed that this made it "part of the operating system".

Flash Update
May 25, 2004 -- The latest Microsoft disinformation campaign involves Alexis de Tocqueville Institution issuing two PR efforts to discredit Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, and spread false impressions that Linux routinely allows misappropriation of patents by defects in Open Source Software creation processes. Since this is current, ongoing, it takes precedence over the historical FUD described below. To get rapidly updated the AdTI-Funding and AdTI personnel pages will be updated regularly as sources and verifications develop.

Normally, the uncovering of disinformation campaigns is delayed until long after the event, but in this case they attacked computer-savvy nerds who know how to mine the internet databases for data and evidence. Within 24 hours a rebuttal site experienced 150,000 hits to read the exposure of the phoney baloney AdTI issued a day before.

AdTI is well-connected to known identified disinformation front organs and funders, and a critical window of opportunity exists to shine light in a lot of dark corners by getting the freelance help of global volunteers. SEE: Groklaw, Grokline , and all of the links off of Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination for exposure of a historic pattern of disinfo from AdTI.

This section ought not be deleted by misguided editing for several weeks as a flurry of mass-education occurs. As thousands of weblinks will be, and already have been, created to these interrelated SourceWatch pages, it is dangerously unhelpful to edit what you don't really understand. New material will be updated to Google searchers every few hours -- don't step on this process. Let the people learn the truth, and let SourceWatch do what it was created to do. There are hundreds of thousands of volunteers standing by to help dig up the dirt.

Relocating unref'd material. --Bob Burton 22:33, 26 Oct 2005 (EDT)


 * In the battle with the open source movement, Microsoft heavily lobbied parliament. Its German PR agency Hunzinger Ag even caused a scandal which forced Minister of Defense Scharping to step down. Hunzinger had to prevent a Bundestag switch to the Linux OS. The case was made public and Hunzinger lost its reputation.
 * In Germany, MS hired actors that perfomed as Linux radicals at conferences.

Software ecosystem
This is material that was almost entirely unreferenced that was posted as a case study. I have deleted the original page as it was not a well developed case study or appropriately referenced. So I have relocated it here in case there is a kernel of material someone wants to rebuild a new article from. --Bob Burton 20:43, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

Microsoft refers to a so-called "degradation of the software ecosystem" that has, according to itself, "sustained unparalleled innovation throughout the industry for the past quarter-century". This use of ecological metaphor and the implication of sustainability are good examples of Microsoft's ongoing attempts to hijack terms with strong recognition or favour, and redefine them to favor itself. Other such examples are their use of "Word" and "DNS".

If there is such a thing as a software ecosystem, then it, like any other ecosystem, up to and including the Earth itself, would be a life-sustaining mechanism deserving of every protection physically possible, and worth risking death to protect. Given the high degree of intellectual property rights, law, and attention that must be paid to protect Microsoft's claims to be compensated for its "innovation" (which some claim is merely persuasion), it would indeed appear that Microsoft expects and desires that its "rights" (interests) would be protected on a similar basis as those by which one protects any ecosystem of real living things.

Furthermore, if there are also "sustained..." good results from recognizing these rights, then the mere fact that software development exists co-opts the term sustainable development, which might under these conceptual metaphors just as easily refer to Microsoft's own development process, not, as generally understood, to ecologically sensitive rural and energy development.

The protection of this so-called "software ecosystem" seems to benefit only Microsoft and its fellow travellers. It seems also to establish a biological conceptual metaphor useful for other propaganda purposes such as establishing the GPL as "viral" and thus "dangerous", or to include the distribution of expensive high-end computers or other forms of persuasion technology as part of sustainable development priorities and funding.

The term appears to be used only by Microsoft, only to benefit Microsoft and others who accept its model of shared source software development as an open source and free software alternative. Its mere use should make any reader suspicious of ideological motives for presenting software as ecology.